In recent years a system of sending electronic mail (e-mail) from a sending computer to a receiving computer has been established through the Internet. The sending computer communicates an e-mail message to an addressed mailbox on an e-mail server where it is stored. The e-mail message is usually stored in the mailbox until the recipient retrieves it at which time the e-mail is usually deleted. The e-mail recipient has no way of knowing when e-mail has reached the e-mail server except by checking his mailbox. This can be a time consuming and frustrating task since there is often no e-mail in the mailbox and the time spent checking has been wasted.
Several prior solutions are know which have attempted to solve this problem. These include the use of pagers, faxes, and automated telephone calls to notify the recipient when the e-mail server has received e-mail. Pagers and automated telephone calls require that the recipient respond to the page or telephone call which can be inconvenient and can be a cause of annoyance to the recipient. Faxes require an expensive fax machine which in many cases makes this solution impractical. These solutions also have the draw back that they do not allow the recipient to check at will whether or not e-mail has arrived but instead require the recipient to respond to a notification which is sent according to timing dictated by the e-mail service provider.
Another prior attempt at solving this problem has been provided by Okumura et al, in U.S. Pat. No. 5,293,250 entitled SYSTEM FOR NOTIFYING A DESTINATION TERMINAL THAT ELECTRONIC MAIL HAS REACHED A HOST COMPUTER. The system taught by Okumura requires the sending computer have specialized notification software. The sending computer generates e-mail for communication to a host computer. A notification signal is then manually generated by the sender using the specialized notification software and is transmitted to the host computer with the e-mail. The host computer includes specialized software for receiving the e-mail notification signal and for notifying the recipient computer. This system has two important problems associated with it. The first problem is that specialized notification software is required at the sending computer and that the sender must manually go through the steps of notifying the host computer that e-mail has been sent. The second problem is that this system does not lend itself to use on the Internet since it would require that the recipient computer be left on at all times so that it is available to receive a notification message from the host computer.
Two other patents which are related to this field are Penzias U.S. Pat. No. 5,475,738, entitled INTERFACE BETWEEN TEXT AND VOICE MESSAGING SYSTEMS, and Zimmerman et al U.S. Pat. No. 5,384,832, entitled METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR A TELEPHONE MESSAGE ANNOUNCING DEVICE.
Penzias teaches a text to speech interface connected to one or more networked computer systems for converting a text e-mail message into a voice message. The voice message is communicated over the telephone network to a voice mail system. This system enables a user to simultaneously send a text e-mail message to a recipient via an e-mail system and a voice mail message generated from the text message to the same recipient's voice mail system via a telephone system.
Zimmerman et al teaches a telephone message notification device for connection to a telephone and having an indicator light for notifying a recipient that a voice message has been received on a telephone voice messaging system.
As well as the prior art above, automated messaging systems for use with voice mail are known and many telephone companies offer a voice message delivery service under various names. This service allows telephone voice message system subscribers to access an automatic voice message system for callers to leave a message if the subscriber is not answering or if the telephone line is busy. Various methods of notification are used to notify a subscriber that voice mail has been received. A stutter dial tone is utilized by some voice mail systems. The stutter dial tone is heard by the subscriber when the telephone receiver is picked up thus notifying the recipient that a message is present in the voice mailbox. Some telephones may include an indicator lamp or text message display for notifying a voice mail recipient that voice mail has been received. In this case a special visual message waiting signaling unit sends a signal to a special electronic circuit within a telephone which activates an LED/Neon flashing lamp connected to the telephone, or sends a text message to a text display. A signal is sent when voice mail has been received to activate the light and/or display the text and is sent again when the voice-mail has been deleted from the voice-mail box to deactivate the light and/or the text. These signals are usually standard signals. In North America and countries that use similar systems, such as Japan, Australia, and Singapore the signals used follow the Bellcore standard.